Can Precision Medicine Reduce the Burden of Diabetes?

Precision medicine is a new health care concept intended to hasten progress toward individualized treatment and, in so doing, to improve everyone’s opportunity to enjoy good health. Yet, this concept pays scant attention to opportunities for change in the social determinants that are the major drivers of health. Precision medicine research is likely to generate improvements in medical care but may have the unintended consequence of worsening existing disparities in health care access. For prevention, precision medicine emphasizes comprehensive risk prediction and individual efforts to accomplish risk reduction. The application of the precision medicine vision to type 2 diabetes, a growing threat to population health, fails to acknowledge collective responsibility for a health-promoting society.

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